The Schwartz Cloud Report

VMware Targets Developers with Micro Cloud Foundry

VMware's Cloud Foundry project released a beta version of its open source Platform as a Service (PaaS) for developer laptops and desktops.

The Micro Cloud Foundry is software for developers who want to build and test applications locally without having to connect to the cloud. Developers can download a virtual machine image of Micro Cloud Foundry, which is compatible with VMware Fusion for Mac OS X, VMware Workstation and VMware Player for Linux and Windows.

"Today we are taking the next step toward providing developers what they need -- a simple PaaS solution you can quickly download and install on your machine," said VMware CTO Steve Herrod in a blog post.

The release of the client-side software, which was expected, is aimed at making it easier for developers to build or repurpose their apps for Cloud Foundry by providing the environment on their local machines.

Herrod said Micro Cloud Foundry supports Java on Spring, Ruby on Rails/Sinatra and Node.JS frameworks in addition to MySQL, MongoDB and Redis databases. In addition, it works with Cloud Foundry's scriptable command line interface, called vmc, and with the Eclipse-based SpringSource Tool Suite (STS), Herrod noted. "This allows developers to retarget deployments between on-premise and public environments without code modifications," he said.